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March 4, 2014

Happy Release Day: The Transmigration of Cora Riley by Ellie Di Julio

The Transmigration of Cora Riley

Forgotten Relics 1

Ellie Di Julio

March 4, 2014

Elle Belle Media

Urban Fantasy

Average family. Average job. Average existential crisis.

After thirty boring years, nothing about Cora Riley’s life has measured up to her childhood dreams of being truly extraordinary. It’s too bad that the night she decides to seek out her specialness she crashes on a rural highway.

Cora wakes in the clutches of the Mistress of the underworld who sets her a seemingly impossible quest. If she wants a second chance at life, Cora must find her way through the dozen heavens and return to the castle in three days.

With the help of an unusual guardian angel named Jack and a little boy named Xavier, Cora navigates the afterlife doorfield and quickly learns that gods and monsters are very real indeed. Terrifying and tempting obstacles litter her path; only the power of belief – in the Otherworld, in her companions, and in herself – will return her to the land of the living.

The Transmigration of Cora Riley is the first novel in the Forgotten Relics urban fantasy series. It brings together the primary heroes, Cora and Jack, and lays out the system of gods, monsters, humans, and belief that shapes the world. Themes of trust, doubt, and redemption are interwoven with mythology both new and old to create a story that reminds the reader there’s always more to what we think we know.

Five facts about the making of:

I very nearly quit writing altogether when I read The Particular Sadness of Lemon

Cake while working on the first draft of Cora Riley because it's so damn good I couldn't see what I'd contribute to literature better than that book. It's what instigated my "no reading while in a writing cycle" rule.

It took approximately 45 days to write the entire 80K first draft, although Part I was written several months before the rest of the book.

So many subconscious pop culture references made it into the book that I'm creating a "Nerd Reference Treasure Hunt" contest to reward my fellow dorks for their keen attention.

The original idea for the doorfield was to have 100 doors, not 12 - one unique door for each belief. But as I did the research, I discovered recurring themes and decided to consolidate. That epiphany lead to a more succinct story, as well as some much better plot ideas for the rest of the series.

Cora's wreck at the start of the book actually happened to me. The only differences between that scene and real life are that I was 18 and it was the middle of the day. The rest of it is 100% drawn from memory.

Ellie Di Julio is a nomadic writer currently living in Hamilton, Ontario with her Robert Downey, Jr. lookalike husband and their three cats. Between nerd activities like playing Dungeons & Dragons or watching Top Gear, she enthusiastically destroys the kitchen and tries to figure out what it’s all about, really. She also writes urban fantasy novels riddled with inside jokes and sexy secret agents.